"I am Human and I need to be loved..."

just like everybody else does. Soooo, who has two thumbs and is lame for not posting blogs in several fortnights? This guy! Turns out I actually have "fans" (probably shouldn't pluralize that) who I've let down, to whom I say, I am sorry and also you should maybe get used to being disappointed.

Have you ever had chunks of life that leave you just baffled? I'm not the best at handling these stretches. I wake up confused, not knowing where I am or at what age. After I've reminded myself that I'm adult Kassie and I'm in Virginia, which is for lovers, and so obviously, I'm where I am supposed to be, I proceed to go about my daily tasks in a state of heightened awareness. That's right, I don't trust you anymore and yes, I have been noticing and analyzing every subtle change in your general behavior since I've been proverbially knocked on my arse by Life. For some reason, I need to pretend like I'm Julia Roberts in "The Pelican Brief". It's creepy and in a way an impressive and specialized skill set, do not worry. I will turn back into my normal crazy soon.

Speaking of lovable crazies, it seems appropriate given the season that I leave you with my presidential hopeful of 2012 (that is, if he's out of the slammer by then). I don't want to alienate anyone by talking politics, but I'm gonna be bold and go ahead and throw myself behind Monsieur Traficant. Sir, you have my vote. My name is Kassie Cardon and I approve this message. Beam me up, Mr. Speaker.

Hugs, anyone?

You know how one hug, given by just the right person at just the right time, literally fixes everything and, aaaah, all is well?

I don't know how many times in my adult life that I have had the very critical conversation with other adults concerning the superpower dilemma. A lot more often than one would assume. Apparently there is a higher than expected chance that one day, we will all be offered a superpower of our own choosing. Grown men the world over lay up at night attempting to prepare for such an event. What am I to CHOOSE? Flight. Pre-cognition. Mind-reading. Invisibility. The ability to make Harry Potter and Hogwarts real.

I know what I would chose. I would be the Hugster. I would be just the right person that comes at just the right time and gives the hugs that makes it all better.

I was talking to a friend recently about life ambitions/goals/plans/dreams. I've got big ones that I only admit to myself and little ones that I'm close to accomplishing. But after soul-searching, the truth is, I really do just want to become the Hugster. Which is impossible. I've done the calculations, and I won't live long enough to hug 6 billion + people. Also, with timing being crucial and what have you, so...I'm just gonna try my best to be a mini-hugster, in whatever little and imperfect ways that I can.

Hugs are taking two mutually-agreed-upon awesome things and putting them together in a spirit and moment of gratitude, making that present even better. I feel like my ipod provides me with audiohugs all the time. Here are some of my favorite audiohug combinations:

Belle & Sebastian + long autumn walks amongst colorful falling leaves
The Decemberists + cleaning the house
Kings of Leon + driving on a sunny day with the windows down and sunglasses on
Feist + laying on the bed daydreaming
NPR + the daily commute
Bob Dylan/Sufjan Stevens + long walks along swan-filled Scottish canals
Oh Brother Where Art Thou bluegrass + blogging

Anyone else have favorite audiohugs?
Holla back

Romeo and Manliet

Why is Feist so awesome? And Fiona? And Sufjan? When I die, I'm totally shaking hands with the dude(tte) who invented music. If not making love to them.

So balance is going aight. I feel like I'm getting a ton more done in the day and life's been more rewarding. I'm not as balanced as I like to be still. I've still got my training wheels on, but I'm advancing for sure. Thanks for asking.

So me and a couple of my homies went into D.C. the other week and saw the Shakespeare Company put on "Romeo and Juliet" auld school style - all male cast. Needless to say, the days leading up to this event were full of my adolescent excitement and giggling (hehehe boys kissing). Little did I know that my mind would be blown by these actors. Literally. At curtain call I was on my hands and knees gathering up the remains of what once was my scalp, cerebrum, and various and sundry other head parts. HOLY GUACAMOLE. I am not exaggerating when I say it was the best play I've ever seen. Ever. Seen. I'm thinking about patronizing only all-male theatre groups as a rule from here on out. It restored my faith in the magic. Magic is real. And sometimes it's found in the theatre.

Thank you Shakespeare (again). You and the music inventor. IOU roughly 98% of my earthly joy.

Manliet

OOoh I am scared of tiny, tiny things

That statement is true on many different levels, but currently I'm terrified of these crazy-spastic-jumping-flash crickets! I don't know if you all are familiar with these - I hadn't met one until I moved to NoVa - but they jump around super fast in an unpredictable fashion. Their movements are completely random and evil. The most advanced logarithm in creation could not predict their travel patterns. If Satan ever wanted to show up in insect form, he would be the CSJF cricket. Actually, my reaction to a visitation from the devil himself would be a perfect illustration of what these little monsters illicit from me.

I was just in the bathroom, watering the toilet, when I went to the sink and was suddenly filled with sheer terror. One of those beasts was on the ground between the head and the sink. I nearly skipped washing the hands just so I could GET OUT OF THERE asap. But I talked myself down and, whilst screaming on the inside, soaped up and ran to my current location.

This cricket (ugh I shudder even typing it) poses no realistic threat to me or my safety. But I don't care. It probably is the king of lies out to get me. I'm scared of all sorts of little things that shouldn't frighten me. Moths, for example. And little kids that are cooler than me. Compliments. I think it may have to do with my perhaps overactive imagination. Or latent paranoid schizophrenia. Or developing hypochondria.

It's like four a.m. Blogging in the middle of the nite is to be discouraged, I think.

Remember that song "3am" by Matchbox 20? Remember Matchbox 20? I believe their first hit was "I wanna initiate a physically abusive relationship with you" or something to that effect. That first album was money. Sigh. The good ol' days.
Speaking of which, who is that precious little girl? Wow. I bet she grows up to be a force of nature. You can just tell, yeah? You know what's weird? I don't feel I've changed much at all since then. Just got a bigger vocabulary. I think I'm probably a little scared of her. :)

Um, so I really wrote this post to declare my new challenge. I haven't had one since the end of The Rawness. I've known this one was gonna pop up sooner or later, though, so I guess now is the time. I already hate myself for doing it cuz it's lame and boring. My newest challenge of indeterminate length is the achievement of...balance.

Have you ever met someone who has a balanced life? Yeah, me neither. They're elusive, those guys. Also, no one seems to want balance. Why not, you ask? Because balance is boring. Where's the spontaneity? Where are the binges and the famines and the ulcers and strokes? The meat of life?? Admittedly, balance will probably bring some much needed peace and happiness to me on a regular, predictable basis. But I hate knowing what I'm gonna do tomorrow. I'll need to make sure I set aside a certain time everyday where I can go ahead and chose to do something rash and probably useless if I want. (What, there's a breath-taking sunset tonight? F that. I'm gonna sit in here and watch the Family Guy).

Freedom. I'm insane. And soon to be regular. Ew. What a depressing word. Who wants to help me come up with a more evocative synonym for "balanced", "regular", "predictable", "one who sleeps exactly the same amount nightly", etc.?

Holla back!
Kass

The Love Bullough

Meet my buddy Adam Bullough. Handsome devil, is he not? I met him in southern California where we were serving together as missionaries for a couple of years. The kid is thebomb.com. One of those people of whom you just feel privileged to be in their presence. Aura-licious. He's a musician. He's genuine. He's kind. I always assumed that the world would be hearing from Adam Bullough. The little guy's too big for the universe to keep under wraps. I secretly have been planning on recording music with him someday. He plays the harmonica! You heard me.

Tragedy struck about a month ago when Bullough was thrown from his motorcycle and suffered severe brain trauma. He wasn't wearing a helmet. He was put into an induced coma for two weeks before the specialists (and Adam) could determine whether or not he would see another day. Inexplicably (or maybe not so, to those witnessing), and to the bafflement of his doctors, miracle after miracle have been happening. Luckily, today Adam is improving. He's still in a coma, but is slowly coming to. Even opened his eyes on command a couple of times. In addition to that incredible news, the doctors feel that most of his brain damage can be reversed. Which means Adam will still be Adam. But he fights daily to reclaim his right to wake up again. And again. And again.

Bullough is gonna be fine. More than fine. I have faith. My heart is tortured for his family. I'm grateful for the effort they put into keeping us informed through caringbridge.org. I'm thankful for the reality check.

What am I doing right now? What are you doing? Are you with the ones you love? Everyday, are you becoming, or just being? Are you catching the sunrises? Smelling the Ponderosa Pines (it's like butterscotchy vanilla, btw)? Are you taking chances? Taking pictures?

Am I?

Tomorrow I will get to wake up before the sun rises. It will be effortless. Like it is day after day. And, frankly, I probably won't be grateful for this gift at first. But deep down I will be because I can change. I can change right now. The gift of the rise and shine.

You can change, too. Choose to be happier. Choose to be more giving. Choose to be different. To listen to the voice. To impregnate the moments. Please do.

And please, always remember a helmet.

Holla back.
Kassie

Pennsylvania: The Anus of America

I hate Pennsylvania. It tried to ruin my life at least twice in the past four days. So far. I know it's not gonna stop at construction and tricky road signs. It's gonna go for the jugular next time. I'm on to you PA! Stay away from me.

I finished my raw marathon. It was an interesting experience. This gal to the right here probably tried to run a marathon whilst being raw. She died two hours later. Just kidding. Actually, she could have. I have no idea. Wouldn't that be awful?! Not funny, Cardon.

My conclusion is that going raw was a good decision that gave the body a nice little boost and cleansing, but that is not necessary to maintain good health and to avoid serious problems. Cancer comes from smoking and the cruel inexplicable draft of the underworld. Adult onset diabetes and heart disease usually come from inactivity, eating mostly sugar and lard pretending to be food, and stupidity. But our bodies are pretty good at making the most of what we give it. Balance is where it's at (I've got two turntables and a microphone...). I'm definitely keeping some of the habits I've formed. I tell you what, though, my first non-raw meal was orgasmic. I wanted to rub it all over my body. I chose to eat it instead.

I got to visit my family in Michigan this weekend. Turns out every single one of them are superhuman. And they are all WAY nice to me, the sub par human. I'm barely potty trained. I spent most of the weekend with my nephew Christopher. He's six years old. I can almost keep up with him. He's a Lego savant. We created many important modes of transportation for robots and Indiana Jones. Now they can save the world. I also got to visit with my good friend Khalid up in EL. He is a good time. I recommend him. We probably should have gotten married when we were five. Unfortunately, five-year-old Kassie didn't spend enough time making life goals. Too much time making things out of mud in the garden. (This may explain the above discrepancy between myself and the rest of my family). Anyways, we visited this incredible music store "Elderly's" and I got to touch a Fender bass guitar that was worth more than my life. If I am ever worthy of such an instrument, this is where I will return to purchase it. And the dream lives on.

I made sure my family was prepared for me being unmarried and most likely unimpressive for the rest of my life. They, surprisingly, are as fine with it as I am. Good to know! Very comforting indeed. And the pressure is dissolved. More to come laterz...

Holla back!
Kassie

BLAAAGH

Hey. Hi. I'm exhausted. This post is gonna be lame. I don't know what happened. Doing the raw thing got not fun in the past day or two. Spiritually, yesterday was awesome. I was feeling good good good. But my head has lost some focusing abilities. Also, today I got nauseated at work and lost my appetite. Weird. And I keep getting leg cramps in the same spot. Somebody call the wambulance.

Basically my will to live is slowly wasting away. Just kidding. But eating hasn't been fun for a couple of days. Except for the peaches I got at Cox Farms. Those were aaaaaahhh. Even the tasty stuff is too much for me these days, though. I feel like my taste buds have been brought out of a coma. I had some snap peas and red peppers the other day and I could hardly handle the power of the flavor. It was shocking. I made some chocomole (using avocadoes, dates, cacao powder, etc.) and I could only have a couple of spoonfuls at one sitting. Food now has too much flavor. What is that?

Todays conclusion: going raw makes one a little dumber, somewhat more physically uncomfortable, and unable to eat much food when hungry. I bet you my reflexes aren't 100% presently, either. You could punch me right now and expect no retaliation.

At least my skin is considerably more glowing. :)

Ugh,
Kassie

Everybody pees.

My bladder has commandeered control over my body and is currently in charge. My brain isn't happy about it, but is not powerful enough to coup. My heart finds it amusing. She's not fighting to regain control. So I guess this is how it's gonna be for a while.

I haven't noticed any unpleasant side effects yet except that it seems that I am in a constant state of tinkling. I. P. Freely. I wasn't expecting this. Of course, most of what I eat now is just water in different packages. Sometimes it's green, stringy water. Sometimes it's orange and tangy water. Water going in and out, in and out. How painful are catheters?

Pleasant surprises:
! I haven't been unusually hungry or tired. Kassie-the-people-eater remains dormant. I don't know how to react to this discovery. Not only that, but I don't crave anything either. What's happening to me?!?!?! Is it possible that Arby's roast beef is infused with addictive chemicals? Maybe they just slaughter the really attractive, popular dude cows that all the lady cows want to make babies with. I, too, used to lust after that beef. No more? Wha? What am I to do!??!

@ My energy level remains fairly consistent all the day long. I have forgotten what this feels like. I'm used to sugar highs and food comas. To be honest, it kinda makes me feel boring. I can be a good time when I've had one too many fried Mars bars (which is one). But only for about an hour. Then I'm asleep curled up in a ball on your couch.

# I will never peel another orange in this life. I've always hated it anyway. As yummy as an orange can be, there's too much at risk on the quest for the fleshy goodness. You get all sticky and acid squirts into your eyeballs and orange gets under your nails and then you suspect the orange has a personal vendetta against you and then you feel crazy for projecting human emotions onto a small, helpless, mute piece of fruit. So you're left feeling a mixture of aggravation, paranoia and guilt. What a horrible experience. On the other hand, juicing oranges is wonderfully therapeutic and deeeelicious. I'm all about the juice. Juicy juice juice. Down into my belly.

K, that's enough for today. The end.

Holla back!

Ravaging the Garden of Eden

So I just got back from my first trip to the organic foods store. I came home with about 350 lbs. of produce that cost somewhere in the ballpark of one million dollars. This will probably last me three days. I'm not gonna lie, I will be super pumped when I make it that far.

So, Kassafrass, just what is "going raw"? Not completely sure, but what I could glean from my not-so-extensive research, going raw is like living (at least orally - easy, kids) as those ancestors of ours did before someone found out where the fire had been hiding for all those years. It's eating raw, "living" foods that have not been chemically altered or heated up to the point of the denaturing of important enzymes, proteins, nutrients, etc. And I'm pretty sure any milk products are out, unless someone can loan me a goat. Who had been raised free range and sans hormones. Mmm?

Well, when I first heard of this concept of living off the land/going back and becoming one with our roots, the spirited hippie inside of me was so excited she immediately tore off all her clothes and cliff-dove into the nearest mountain lake. Awesome. I liked it. Plus, there have been all these studies and ballywho (ballywha?) raised about how this crap in our over-processed food is giving us cancer and asthma and obesity and male-patterned baldness...sounds like a good idea to see what happens when I don't have to deal with all these damaging additions.

On the other hand, the physiologist inside me wonders, will my kidneys get bored? My liver will posit, what am I, chopped? (I know, straight off a Laffy Taffy wrapper. I hate myself a little.) Balance is important, too. Whatevs. I'm gonna go for it and see what happens.

I guarantee you this won't be like a year long thing. Probably won't be a Thanksgiving long thing. Right now it's looking like a Labor Day thing, if not a, hey TGIF! thing. I definitely will do it long enough to experience a physical change that can be recorded. I went to the doctor today and they recorded my pre-raw condition. Surprisingly, I'm in great health. Mrs. Doctor Lady even asked me if I exercise a lot because my results seemed indicative of such a lifestyle. Heh heh. Oooooh . Not enough, Doctor Lady, not enough. (p.s. Dr. Lady looked and acted like a grown up Daria. Remember her? MTV? My first impression was initially doubting, but then it turned into a mixture of empathetic pity and affection. Med school wasn't fun for you, was it Dr. Daria Lady?)

Final pre-raw observations:

1. Eating raw seems to include a lot of "juicing" and "blending". Pretty much, you gather things off of trees and plants, smoosh them all together, and drink them, just like our ancestors did. Apparently the blender preceded fire (hmm). Also, it seems that the raw food diet was created by the toothless. Now my teeth can finally just sit back, relax, and work on looking pretty.

2. Raw foods take more preparation than the cornucopia of refined foods from which I generally glut myself. For example, my Honey Nut Cheerios prep in the morning is 93% remembering who/where I am and what one does in a kitchen, 7% locating spoon and bowl/milk and cereal. Combined prep. time: 30 sec. Hard to beat. This will take some adjustment.

3. My poor body is gonna be way confused about where all that refinery went. I'm pretty sure in my blood there are microscopic peanut m&ms floating around with the red and white blood cells. My bod's gonna look at me like this:
Also, I haven't found a good raw staple to replace it. Any suggestions?

4. I really can't handle being too hungry. Food is like food to me. It's not the stomach pain or the lethargy that kills me. That's just kinda annoying. And it's not that I'll miss the social eating engagements. I'm too cheap to go out to eat regularly (damn you Chicfila!) The problem, however, is that starting sometime in the past five-ish years, whenever I reach the point of relative starvation, I get possessed by this neurotic, Chicken Little, Alzheimer'sy version of myself. I get disoriented and irritable, scared of nothing in particular, and certain that the world is shortly going to end. My dad suffers from the same phenomenon. The ladies in his office refuse to work in the afternoon unless he's had a sandwich. Because he loses his mind. You don't want to be conscious when my father is restructuring your jaw on an empty stomach. He's a grumplestiltskin.

5. My friend Heather told me that she used to work for a guy who made his own organic carrot juice and drank so much of it that his skin actually turned orange. Does this mean that if I drink enough carob smoothies I can finally become a black woman?! W00t! I guess only in body, not in spirit. Not good enough. Perhaps I need to juice Mo'nique.

I'll keep you posted on the development of these observations in the coming days and weeks. And if you find me unusually snappy, hook a sister up with a banana or sumfin. Tanks very mooch.

Day T - 1 and I am terrified...

Sometimes a girl's gotta, you know, completely change the direction certain aspects of her life are headed. I tend to do this at least fortnightly, but I've gotten out of the habit as of late. I have become existentially out of shape, if you will (will you?). So what am I going to do about it?

I've decided to go raw. In a couple of different ways. Firstly, I am quite literally going to stop eating foods that are not raw. I have my reasons, they range from wanting to draw closer to God via purification of mi templo yo, to deciding that eating whatever you want/whenever you want is for wussies. Regardless, this is gonna be hilarious and painful. I'm probably going to lose 79% of my friend pool and, according to a raw food website I read yesterday, at the beginning of this process I may experience diarrhea, pimples, rashes (?), dizziness, headaches, and random and inexplicable mucous discharge. HOT. I secretly hope to discover a new side effect. Like hearing other people's thoughts.

My second rawness choice is this blog itself. It terrifies me. I tend to think that I am insane. I literally would rather burn all the journals I've ever written from my deathbed than let anyone I've ever encountered ever read them. Nobody needs to see that stuff. I'd rather you keep your naive caricatures of who you all think I am floating in your minds for eternity. But, alas, due to my weakness for dares (especially ones of the double-dog variety), and also with the encouragement of not a few people confessing to me that they would buy 20 of my books if I ever wrote one (I tend to think that you are insane, too) I have created this blog in order to overcome my fear of your eventual fear of the real, raw Kassie Cardon.

So welcome to the madness! I have tasted it, and it is quite tangy, juicy, and untampered with.

I promise each blog with be at least this long, so as likely as not Roxanne is the only person who will actually read any of this. Which is comforting. Hey, Roxanne! Jens Lekman was on "This American Life" today!! NPR is cutting edge! Jens is incredible!